Learning the ropes from behind bars

Boxing is a profoundly powerful engagement hook that can help turn lives around and ultimately make society feel safe, says former death row inmate and now award-winning boxing matchmaker Luyanda Kana.

Kana got involved in boxing after being advised by Makhenkesi Stofile, the former Eastern Cape premier, to get inmates out of mischief by way of training them for boxing. Kana was then serving time in the Middledrift Maximum Security Prison.

Anti-apartheid activist Stofile was convicted in 1987 under the Internal Security Act for terrorism, illegal possession of weapons and furthering the aims of the ANC. 

Kana, who was sentenced to death for his political activities, said the carefully controlled programmes brought about huge improvements in offenders’ levels of engagement, physical and mental wellbeing, motivation, discipline, respect and good behaviour.

“When that programme went well then-minister of correctional services Ngconde Balfour launched boxing as a sport in all correctional centres around the country and [it] became part of their rehab programme,” said Kana, who was pardoned by then-president Thabo Mbeki in 2002 after being in jail for 14 years.

That programme helped a number of inmates who became SA champions after their release. Kana and Mandlakayise Jakavu trained inmates that included Mzukisi Roberts, Sabelo Jubata, Lindile Tshemese, Bonakele Bikitsha, Dumisani Maka and Stanley Gola.

Roberts won the BSA development programme known as Baby Champs; Tshemese, who went to prison without knowing how to box, became the SA junior bantamweight champion. Jubata won the national featherweight belt, while Bikitsha, Maka and Gola won provincial titles.

“The department of correctional services should consider doing what ... Balfour did and reintroduce sports in general, boxing in particular, [in prisons],” said Kana, who now arranges bouts.

“They are idling with nothing to do and get involved in stupid things like gangsterism. They are calling me even now, asking me to help with training equipment,” said Kana, whose commitment earned him the BSA matchmaker of the year award in 2018.

“Sadly, I can’t just take equipment to prisons when authorities don’t have regard for the sport; it needs their permission, and surely there are good people out there who can donate equipment.”

Another former inmate who has changed his life for the better since coming out of prison is Khaya Busakwe from Central Western Jabavu in Soweto. Trained by accomplished veteran Norman Hlabane, Busakwe is the reigning SA lightweight champion and the only national boxing champ from Soweto at the moment.

“I congratulate him,” says Kana, who is optimistic the government will reconsider reintroducing sport behind bars.